Terra Incognita
by Amethyst Soul
Summary: Venture into unknown territory. TouyaYuuhi slash.


Title: Terra Incognita; literally, "Unknown Territory"  
  
Rating: PG if you miss the metaphor.  
  
Pairings: predominately, but rather indistinctly, Touya/Yuuhi  
  
Time: Meant to be post-episode 24, even though I've only seen up to episode 20. Not my fault, I'm in an anime class and this was my assignment. Use your imaginations, you have them for a reason ^.~  
  
Disclaimer: Ayashi no Ceres is beautiful, but it does not belong to me, and likewise I am not its "woman".  
  
A/N: Read, review, flame, whatever. I write for an audience of one; feedback is enjoyable.  
  
"Do you remember that day?" Mist, like fingers, ruffled his shoelaces.  
  
He continues, "Day. So many. Like flies."  
  
Auburn and dark red were always beautiful colors together. Like leaves fallen to the ground, stained with autumn's onslaught. Their "autumn" had tossed them down and beat them. But here they lay, under the eye of above, still very much alive.  
  
His companion nods. "That is why I love this place. Because I can remember."  
  
Auburn rests his head against Red's shoulders, his purple headband nudging against the others' forehead. The fog stains his arms with moisture as does the spray of the sea, and forms a huge screen against his vision.  
  
"Where has it ended?" Eyes open suddenly. They are silver like the fish before him, leaping up to breathe their death and falling back, admitting their mortality.  
  
"I can no longer tell." His eyes are the color of eerie mist collecting above the sea. He watches the horizon, as much as he can see of it in all this weather, where the ocean drops off the face of the earth. "We're still alone here."  
  
"That is because we stopped the sun in its tracks."  
  
He pauses to regard sanguine. "Touya."  
  
"Yuuhi."  
  
The fish leap into the mist above.  
  
* * *  
  
Her fingers dance on the piano keys. Autumn dances furtively outside under the cherry blossoms, not aware that anyone is watching. She is seven months today.  
  
Autumn and her mother live in the Aogori household now. It is October, and autumn really is dancing outside. The child's mother stops playing to watch the partners twist and entwine in a tango of human and nature. Autumn's hands sway in the shadows as autumn's leaves spin and twirl around her. She is happy and warm, but every so often the wind blows and she shivers. Suzumi, who had been watching her carefully, walks over and takes her into her arms to bring her inside. Autumn, though still incapable of understanding, already identifies her as a surrogate grandmother.  
  
Suzumi's silhouette pauses at the door. Aya returns to playing the piano, the karaoke of her fingers. The keys sing for her, as she no longer sings herself anymore. They say: "The flock headed north for winter. When will they return? Return to me. Drop me a feather so I can know. Return to me some day."  
  
Suzumi-"grandmother"-walks in the room and sets Autumn down next to Aya. The two women are similar, like sisters, more than anything, but that is a not presently a story for Autumn's young ears.  
  
* * *  
  
"Tell me a story," he murmured when he could breathe again.  
  
"Of what?"  
  
"Of angels with black wings and angels with white wings. Of glitter and glory. Of runaways."  
  
"We're not runaways." A hand reaches up to brush through hair moist with movement and air.  
  
"It's better to think of us as that than what we really are. We ran away together. Wouldn't Aya like that explanation better?"  
  
"And to think you were jealous because you thought I was going to take her away from you."  
  
"Almost."  
  
Hands tighten around shoulders.  
  
The boy with the raspberry band and acorn hair continued, "That's why we're together, isn't it? Because you can't be with her?"  
  
"Don't say such things."  
  
Eyes, cotton soft. "'Such things' don't matter anymore. We're here because we sacrificed together: the cliché little duo fighting for their love of a woman, transforming their hatred for each other into pleasanter venues. It was winter when we first came here. Haven't you noticed? It's autumn now. And hopefully it will be for as long as trees grow leaves."  
  
The waves beat against the base of the tower on which they sit. The fish seem to cut through the fog now in their jumps, but they, too, become lost in the clouds of the ground.  
  
You can hear them still, leaping and breathing and moving. The sound seems so far away, like fading spirits. If you don't strain to listen to their words, you will miss them. 


End file.
